Efficient Realizations of the Observable Universe

published by 4c on Mon, 03/10/2014 - 09:16

Planck, ACT, and SPT are mapping out the microwave sky in unprecedented detail. At the same time, future surveys with such facilities as CHIME, LSST, and SKA will revolutionize the amount of information available to us about the formation of the first stars and black holes, galaxies, and the large scale structure of the universe. Making sense of all this data will require cosmological simulations accurate over a much larger dynamic range than currently possible. I will describe the current open questions that can be answered with this data and present the new computational techniques we are developing to tackle this problem. Particular focus will be placed upon fast reionization simulations that use the excursion set formalism and accurate large scale structure calculations using a massively parallel implementation of the peak patch approach.